Richard McLauchlan, Saturday’s Silence: R.S. Thomas and Paschal Reading

Abstract

Giffin celebrates this movement beyond tragedy on the part of White's characters and points out that his novels often end with characters such as Ruth Godbold in Riders or Mary de Santis in Eye of the Storm, "whose background-in an explicit or implicit way-is associated with the Christian imagination. These Christian characters are always poised, waiting to be launched-or perhaps thrown-into their mysterious future" (267), a future perhaps suggesting soteria, a kind of wholeness that may possibly be achieved even in this life, and even in words (22)(23). But other aspects of White's work he finds more problematic. Near the end of the "Future Directions" chapter, Giffin writes, White's belief in a creator God who can make mistakes-a God who made us, and we got out of hand, like Frankenstein's monster-comes from Mary Shelley's reworking of the Prometheus myth . . . . [But] as Benedict points out, the claim that God is free to change his mind and do the opposite of what he has done, posits a voluntarism that allows for a capricious or fickle God who can change his mind and undo what he has done. The idea that God's freedom does not bind him to his word-or to truth and goodness-renders his covenants with humanity, on Sinai and in Christ, meaningless and undermines the idea of humanity as an authentic mirror of God. This is why our understanding of logos requires concensus. This is why the west needs a conversation between Benedict and White. (295)